


i promised myself i wouldn't let you complete me

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Foster Care, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Relationships Listed In Vague Order of Importance, Team as Family, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26707789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Bobbi Morse has been in and out of foster care since she was eleven years old. When she's once again placed in foster care at age seventeen she makes peace with the fact the Coulsons will be her temporary home until she ages out of the system. Unfortunately for Bobbi, the family begins to steal her heart the way no one has before, and she's left with the sad reality that come her eighteenth birthday, they won't want her anymore. (So she thinks, of course.)
Relationships: Bobbi Morse & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Melinda May & Bobbi Morse, Phil Coulson/Melinda May, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 137
Kudos: 169





	1. september, part 1

Bobbi knew it was going to be a bad day when she was called to the office during sixth period and came face-to-face with Mr. Gonzales. The graying, grizzled old man had been her caseworker when she had first gone into the foster care system when she was eleven, and his return into her life could only mean one thing.

“Foster care again, huh?” she asked, trying to smile and instead finding the words sticking unpleasantly in her throat.

“I’m afraid so, Barbara.” He offered a tight smile in response to hers. His moustache did a good job of hiding that Gonzales never smiled with his teeth, and if it hadn’t been for the crinkles at the corners of his eyes Bobbi might not have realized he was trying to smile at all.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to center herself and calm her racing thoughts. Even if she had kind of been expecting this, it wasn’t any easier. “Do I need to get my stuff?”

“You can go back to class. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t try to go home on the bus.”

“Right.” There were only twenty minutes until the final bell so Bobbi wasn’t sure why they had called her to the office just to send her back – maybe in case she had a meltdown about going back into the system? It wasn’t like this was her first rodeo, but she was sure Gonzales had a protocol to follow.

Bobbi went back to class, but naturally the instructions her teacher was giving about their derivatives worksheet went in one ear and out the other; calculus wasn’t important when her life was about to be upended. Again. She hadn’t thought to ask Gonzales if she would have an opportunity to go back to her nana’s house and pick up the things she had there, but she was guessing the answer was no. Bobbi’s lips thinned into a line and she almost snapped the graphite tip of her pencil pressing too hard on the page.

 _The derivative of x 2 is 2x. It’s okay that I’m going into foster care again. The derivative of x3 \+ 6x is 3x2 \+ 6. It’s _not _okay I’m going into foster care again._

When the bell rang Bobbi trudged to the front office to meet Mr. Gonzales again. He signed her out with the receptionist and led her to his car, an old Buick that was parked in the back of the parking lot next to the cars of the juniors who drove to school. Bobbi did one sweep of the parking lot to see if she could catch sight of Hunter, but quickly remembered he was staying after school for track practice. Great.

Bobbi kept her backpack on her lap as Gonzales peeled out of the parking lot, going heavy on the accelerator so he could beat the buses out of the school. He took the exit onto the highway, and Bobbi bit her lip as the trees rushed by in the steady pace of pre-rush hour traffic. They spent at least twenty minutes in uncomfortable silence on the highway before Gonzales found the exit he was looking for, and Bobbi valiantly ignored her worries about what school she would be going to. They hadn’t crossed county lines, but they were way outside her school’s district and she doubted the first thing her new foster parents wanted to do at seven in the morning was drive thirty minutes to take her to school.

She tried to hide her shock when Gonzales turned into a neighborhood with the biggest houses Bobbi had ever seen. It didn’t have a gate but it looked like the community that should have – perfectly manicured green lawns, _literal white picket fences_ , houses in various shades of brick and grey. The place he eventually stopped at was medium-sized for the neighborhood, but still twice as large as any house Bobbi had lived in. She resisted the urge to ask Mr. Gonzales if he was sure he’d gotten the right place, instead following him up the walk to the navy-blue front door.

He didn’t even have time to knock before the door swung open. Bobbi shifted her weight back onto her heels and hunched her shoulders, hoping it would hide how much taller she was than the woman she presumed was her new foster mother. The man standing beside her – probably her husband and Bobbi’s new foster father – was still at least an inch shorter than Bobbi, probably more. Great.

“Hi,” the man greeted, giving Gonzales a nod. “You must be Barbara.”

“Bobbi,” she corrected without thinking. “Um. Sorry. I mean, I prefer Bobbi. If that’s alright.” God, this was the part of having new foster parents she hated – the trying to figure out whether they were normal humans or complete jerks.

“Of course it’s alright,” the woman said. “Why don’t you two come in? Shoes off at the door, please.”

Bobbi toed her battered sneakers off her feet, placing them next to a pair of Converses she guessed didn’t belong to either of her foster parents, which meant there were other kids in the house. Bobbi peered around when they walked towards the kitchen, but couldn’t spot any signs of other kids being home. Maybe middle schoolers? There was a dog bowl in the corner by the kitchen table, so maybe the kid was out with the dog?

“I’m Melinda, and this is my husband, Phil,” the woman said as she situated herself at the kitchen table. “Mr. Gonzales told us you weren’t really expecting to go into foster care today, is that right?”

“Um.” Bobbi looked at her case worker, then at Melinda. “Not really.” _Liar_. She hadn’t been expecting it, exactly, but it also hadn’t come out of left field as much as Mr. Gonzales had probably led Phil and Melinda to believe.

“Well, we hope you’ll be able to make yourself at home here. Phil, why don’t you show Bobbi to her room?” she said before Bobbi could sit down.

Bobbi had to give Melinda points for subtlety – most foster parents didn’t care about talking about her in front of her face, but it seemed like Melinda actually did want her to be comfortable.

“There are three other kids in the house,” Phil explained when he led Bobbi up the stairs, “but Daisy’s bedroom is in the basement, so you’ll only be sharing a bathroom with Fitz and Kora.”

“Okay.” Bobbi didn’t know how else to respond. At least that was one mystery solved – there were other kids in the house. Daisy and Kora sounded like girls’ names, but she wasn’t sure about the last one, Fitz. It seemed like more of a nickname than anything, and it could fit someone of any gender.

“This room’s yours.” Phil opened the door to the bedroom directly at the top of the stairs, and Bobbi followed him into it. It was small, but in a cozy way instead of a claustrophobic way. The bed was pushed into one corner by the room’s single window, covered in a gray comforter. The whole room was monochromatic, actually – perfectly designed to be able to suit any person’s tastes. Even the desk in the corner was painted white instead of left to be natural wood.

“Thanks.” Bobbi set her backpack down beside the desk, not wanting to put the grimy thing on the comforter and accidentally stain it.

“I’ll show you the bathroom,” Phil said when he seemed satisfied Bobbi was done looking at her new room. She followed him to the next door over, and tried to hide the shock on her face when she saw how _big_ the bathroom was. Sure, the whole house was bigger than she was really comfortable with (except for maybe her room, which was a relief) but there was a _jacuzzi_ in the bathroom – and this wasn’t even the master bathroom! The shower also looked impressive, but Bobbi’s eyes kept skipping back to the jacuzzi in the corner.

“Like I said, you’ll be sharing with Fitz and Kora.” Phil’s assertion was corroborated by the two toothbrushes in a cup on the pristine counters. “You’ll meet them when they come home from school. I expect Daisy will be downstairs when we go back down.” Phil turned around, and Bobbi immediately looked away when he tried to catch her eye. He seemed nice enough, but Bobbi didn’t want him to be able to scrutinize her and deem her unworthy or ungrateful. Without her backpack to hold and in just her socked feet she felt more vulnerable than she had in a long time, and she didn’t like it.

“How old are they?” Bobbi asked as a diversion.

“Fitz and Daisy are both fifteen. Fitz goes to a magnet school, which is why he’s not home yet. Kora’s twelve. The middle school lets out at three-thirty,” he added helpfully when he saw Bobbi mentally trying to calculate what grade Kora would be in.

“Cool,” Bobbi said. She was sure things would get less awkward when she felt like she actually knew Phil instead of being a stranger intruding on his house, but for now Bobbi just felt like she was taking up space.

“Do you guys have a dog?” she asked as they exited the bathroom.

“We do!” Phil’s face lit up. “Daisy asked for a dog for years before we got Melinda to agree to it, but he was Daisy’s Christmas gift last year and now Mel loves him more than she loves me. He’s a rescue, we think he’s a pitt bull-Dalmatian mix but we’re thinking about getting him one of those DNA tests to be sure. We know they’re dumb, but curiosity, you know?”

Bobbi just nodded along as Phil continued to rhapsodize about the dog – whose name was Cap, Bobbi learned about halfway through his spiel – all the way down the stairs.

“… You’re not allergic, are you? Your file didn’t mention anything, but –”

“No,” Bobbi assured him. “I’m only allergic to amoxycillin.” She doubted they’d let her stay with this family; between a foster child and a dog, most people would pick the dog.

“That doesn’t sound like a fun story,” Phil said with a sympathetic wince.

Bobbi shrugged. “I was three. I think it freaked my parents out more than me.”

Phil nodded thoughtfully, then poked his head into the kitchen. “You two ready for us?”

He must’ve received an answer to the affirmative because he entered and beckoned Bobbi to follow him. Melinda looked somber, and Bobbi suppressed a sigh. The thing she hated most about foster care was when her foster family pitied her, and it looked like Melinda was headed down that road.

“We’re excited to have you with us for the next few months, Bobbi,” Melinda said, gesturing for her to sit down at the table.

“Few months?” Bobbi looked to Mr. Gonzales. “They don’t know it’s going to be that long, do they?” CPS cases didn’t have a set timeline for when they’d resolve. If her nana did everything the judge asked of her, then –

“Bobbi,” Gonzales said, voice shockingly gentle. “Your grandmother has petitioned to give up her parental rights.”

The air whizzed out of Bobbi like air out of a balloon. “Oh.”

“I’ll let you know if anything changes, but…”

“It’s fine,” Bobbi interrupted. She didn’t need Gonzales to spell out the rest of her future for her – if her nana’s parental rights were terminated permanently, she would become a ward of the state, which meant foster care until she reached age of majority or someone adopted her. Since she only had eight and a half more months until she turned eighteen, it didn’t take a genius to figure out which would happen first.

“I’ll be visiting her house this weekend to collect your things. I should be able to drop them off before Monday,” Mr. Gonzales said.

“Thank you.” Bobbi stared at the wood table, tracing her thumbnail along the whorls of the grain. Her nana wasn’t always the best guardian, since she forgot things more often than she remembered them (including feeding Bobbi, which wasn’t always the greatest), but she had been the one to take care of Bobbi the longest since her actual parents. She had thought it was going to work – if not forever, then at least until Bobbi turned eighteen and could figure her own life out. At least the end result was the same, Bobbi supposed; she’d strike out on her own on her eighteenth birthday. Well, mostly on her own. Hunter would be there, and his moms.

Bobbi forced herself to take a deep breath, fighting against a hot rush of tears.

“I’m sorry, Bobbi.” Mr. Gonzales put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Like I said, I’ll keep you in the loop.”

She just nodded, not trusting her voice. Phil led Mr. Gonzales out of the room and presumably to the door, but Melinda didn’t try to talk even when it was just the two of them in the kitchen.

When Phil came back, alone, he slid into the chair next to Bobbi’s. “I’m sorry that you had to find out that way, kiddo. Mel wouldn’t have said anything if she didn’t think you already knew.”

“It’s fine,” Bobbi choked out. “What did you need me for?”

“Just a few house rules,” Melinda said. “Those can wait, though, if you’re not up to it.”

“No, I’m fine.” Bobbi sniffed once then lifted her head, looking just past Melinda to the sky-blue walls of the kitchen so she wouldn’t see the damn _pity_ in her eyes.

“Your curfew will be ten p.m. on week nights, midnight on weekends. You’re allowed to stay up as late as you’d like but after curfew please keep noise to a minimum. If we notice you’re not getting enough sleep we may consider the bedtime rule.” Bobbi nodded after each rule Melinda stated. None of them were unnecessarily draconian, which was better than some of her other foster homes.

“Please let us know if you’re going to have any guests over – the day before for daytime visits, at least three days ahead on overnight visits. Bedroom doors are to remain open no matter the gender of the person visiting with you. We’re not going to assume your sexuality, nor do we want you to feel pressured to disclose it.” Bobbi nodded again, fighting down the flush on her cheeks. No one had bothered to ask her what her sexual preferences were since she’d started dating a boy at fifteen, and she’d mostly liked it that way, but it felt _weird_ to have it acknowledged so openly she might be anything other than heterosexual.

“We’ll talk to you about chores when you’ve been with us a little longer, but –”

“Can I take care of the dog?” Bobbi interrupted. “Sorry.” She said immediately when Melinda’s mouth tightened.

“It’s alright,” Melinda said after a moment. “Yes, we consider making the dog your responsibility, if that’s what you’re requesting, but please don’t cut me or anyone else off when we’re speaking.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bobbi whispered, dropping her head back down and fidgeting with her fingers.

Melinda paused for a long moment and Bobbi waited for the inevitable _maybe this isn’t going to work_ , but after that tense second, she continued on with the house rules. “Do you have a phone?”

Bobbi nodded. “My nana pays for it, though.”

“We’ll see about getting you switched to our plan, then. Phones can be used only after homework has been completed, and never at the dinner table. Other technology has the same restrictions, unless you need it to complete your homework.”

“Am I transferring schools?” Bobbi asked when she was sure Melinda was done speaking.

“You are. Phil’s going to go to the high school tomorrow and get you enrolled there.”

Bobbi nodded, and waited for further instruction, but none came.

“May I be excused?” she asked after a minute had passed.

“If you’d like to meet Daisy, we can invite her up. Otherwise you’ll be meeting her, Fitz, and Kora at dinner.”

“Mel,” Phil said quietly. “I think maybe it’s better if we let Bobbi go for now. It’s been a hard day.”

It was really only the last hour and a half that had been hard, but Bobbi didn’t argue. She just wanted to get back to her room and collect herself. Maybe cry. (Definitely cry, but she wasn’t going to admit that.)

“Do you want to take Cap with you?” Phil suggested. “He’s very helpful with unpacking.”

Bobbi hesitated. Phil obviously knew Cap wouldn’t be helping with unpacking of any sort – all she had in her backpack was school stuff, and none of that would be useful anymore since she was transferring. That meant Phil knew she was going to be sitting in her room crying, and wanted the dog to go with her… to comfort her? That seemed the likeliest explanation.

“I guess,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug.

Phil whistled, and a moment later the _click-clack_ of dog nails on hardwood floor echoed through the space.

Bobbi’s heart melted when the dog poked his head through the doorway of the kitchen. Cap was one of those dogs who always looked like they were smiling, and Bobbi couldn’t help but feel a little less sorry for herself when he was staring up at her with the puppy grin on his face.

“Thanks, Phil,” Bobbi murmured under her breath before standing up from the table and heading to her room, Cap hot on her heels.


	2. september, part 2

“Dinner!”

Bobbi lifted her head from the pillow and let out a resounding sigh. She knew that she was going to have to leave her room eventually, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. She’d spent the first twenty minutes alone crying on the floor with Cap valiantly attempting to comfort her, and the five after drafting a text message to Hunter that accurately portrayed how she was feeling without sending him into a worrying fit. He was still at track practice still so he hadn’t responded, leaving the next few hours for Bobbi to alternate between playing pointless games on her phone and staring at the white walls of her bedroom.

She detoured to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face, and Bobbi winced when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was matted down to her head and her eyes were much, much puffier than she had hoped. The redness had faded well enough, but there was still no question that she had been crying. Bobbi sighed and combed her fingers through her hair so she at least looked somewhat presentable before heading down the stairs. Cap followed her eagerly, probably looking forward to dinner scraps. At least one of them was going to have a good time.

The kitchen felt much smaller when the table was full, and the conversation the family had been having immediately stopped when Bobbi entered the room.

“Empty place setting is for you, Bobbi!” Phil announced cheerily, breaking the silence. The empty seat in question was at the foot of the table, and Bobbi slid into place wordlessly.

“Mr. Gonzales said spaghetti’s your favorite?” Melinda prompted, handing a pot of pasta down the table to Bobbi.

 _Yeah, when I was eleven_ , Bobbi wanted to say. Instead she accepted the proffered pot and dolloped some onto her plate, followed by the sauce from a separate pan and the meatballs from a third. She didn’t hate spaghetti, but her favorite food now was the French onion soup from the pub down the street from Hunter’s place. She wasn’t going to be ungrateful, Bobbi told herself – she’d just correct Melinda at some later point so she didn’t keep making spaghetti on Bobbi’s account.

She passed the dishes to her right when she was done with them. Bobbi assumed the girl sitting there was Kora, based on how young she was – she still had round cheeks of youth and wide, soft brown eyes.

Bobbi waited for everyone else to take their food, poised to fold her hands and say grace if Melinda and Phil were that kind of parents. Kora started eating without waiting, though, so Bobbi followed her lead, twirling the spaghetti around her fork slowly and deliberately.

Conversation slowly began to pick back up again once everyone had been served. Phil and Melinda inquired about their children’s days at school and they gave answers in various levels of detail. Daisy – who wore enough eyeliner that Bobbi was confident she was the elder of the two sisters – chattered on in detail about all her classes, especially computer science, while Fitz just gave a short _fine_ when asked about school. Kora was somewhere in between, elaborating when asked but not offering much unprompted.

“What about you, Bobbi?” Melinda asked when the other kids had gone.

Bobbi gave her a wary look. How did Melinda _think_ the school day had gone for her? She was saved by having to answer by her phone buzzing in her pocket.

“Sorry,” Bobbi apologized immediately. She hadn’t thought about bringing her phone down to the dinner table – it was force of habit. “I’ll go put this back in my room.”

“Is your boyfriend texting you?” Kora asked with the combination of childlike innocence and boy-craziness only a middle school girl could possess.

Bobbi glanced at Melinda, then at Phil. “Yeah, it’s probably him,” she admitted. “I sent him a message earlier but he was busy.”

Melinda and Phil exchanged a glance that wasn’t subtle, but probably wasn’t meant to be, either. Bobbi expected she was going to get an entirely new list of house rules now that they knew she had a boyfriend. “Should I go -?” she asked, looking at her foster parents expectantly.

“Yes, you can put it back. Try to remember next time,” Melinda said, not unkindly. Hopefully they understood that habits took time to break and wouldn’t punish her the next time she inevitably forgot.

Bobbi ran back up the stairs, and when she was at her bedroom fished her phone out of her pocket. Hunter had texted three more times, all variations of _it’s going to be okay, Bob_. She bit her lip but ultimately decided against texting him back – he’d want to start a conversation and she wouldn’t be able to respond again until dinner was done.

She set the phone on her desk gently before pivoting and returning to the dinner table. This time the conversation didn’t halt when she sat back down, which she counted as a win.

“So, Bobbi,” Daisy said when she and Kora had finished bickering about something – maybe candles? Bobbi wasn’t entirely sure. “Tell us about your boyfriend.”

“Daisy,” Fitz sighed before Bobbi could answer. “I don’t _care_ about her boyfriend.”

“I do!” Daisy defended. “And so does Kora! Right, Kora?”

“Yeah!”

“Maybe you could consider asking Bobbi questions about herself before you start asking about her boyfriend,” Melinda suggested gently.

“Yes, Mom,” Kora said obediently. “Bobbi, what do you like to do in your free time?”

Bobbi shrugged, pushing her food around on her plate to give herself time to think. “I run. I used to do tae kwon do before school got harder. I read a lot.” Oh, shit. She had library books at her nana’s house, and she didn’t want to use her hard-earned allowance money on fines for overdue books. Hopefully Gonzales made good on his promise to get everything to her by Monday.

“Fitz reads a lot too! Right, Fitz?” Kora said, turning to her brother eagerly.

“Yeah. They’re mostly engineering or physics books, though.”

Bobbi resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose. “I didn’t really like physics when I took it.” Her teacher had talked too fast and expected her to memorize _way_ too many formulas she was never going to use again in her life.

“Oh, don’t say that in front of Fitz. He worships the ground Isaac Newton walks on,” Daisy said, grinning.

“Like you’re much better, Miss Ada-Lovelace-is-the-universe’s-gift-to-me!” Fitz grumbled back.

“Don’t insult Ada!”

Fitz and Daisy continued bickering and Bobbi relaxed slightly, glad to no longer be the center of attention.

“They always do this,” Kora said, turning to Bobbi. “Feel free to tell them to shut up.”

“Kora,” Melinda warned.

She sighed. “Feel free to tell them to be quiet. We don’t say shut up to our siblings.”

Bobbi nodded in silent agreement before returning to her pasta. She couldn’t eat much before she was full – it felt like her stomach had shrunk while she was with her nana and not eating three square meals a day, and the last thing she wanted was to spend her first night with her foster family throwing up because she couldn’t control herself.

She put her fork down quietly and let the waves of the conversation wash over her. Fitz and Daisy had stopped bickering, but they had moved on to talking about someone named _Mack_ who Bobbi didn’t know anything about.

“Is that all you’re going to eat, sweetheart?” Melinda asked when she noticed Bobbi had finished eating.

Bobbi nodded wordlessly, and Melinda didn’t push, just took Bobbi’s place with hers to the sink.

“May I be excused?” Bobbi asked when Melinda returned to the table.

“If you’d like, yes.”

The words were no sooner out of Melinda’s mouth than Bobbi was out of her seat. She was surprised to find Cap followed her to her bedroom without prompting, and her heart tugged when he settled on the floor near her bed. 

Bobbi grabbed her phone from where she had put it on the desk and hopped into her bed, opening her messages as she tucked herself under the sheets.

_[Bobbi]: Sorry, no phones at the dinner table._

It didn’t take more than a few seconds for her phone to ping with a response.

_[Hunter]: Are you okay?_

_[Bobbi]: Yeah, I’m okay._

_[Bobbi]: Can I call you?_

Rather than text a response, Hunter called her instead.

“Hi,” Bobbi sighed when she picked up the phone. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she let go of the tension she’d been holding onto for all of dinner.

“Hi, love.” Hunter’s end of the line rustled slightly and Bobbi assumed he was leaving whatever room he had been in. He had probably been with his moms, Bobbi mused. “Everything alright?”

“I already told you I’m fine, Hunter,” she said, simultaneously exasperated and secretly pleased he had bothered to ask again.

“That’s not the same as everything being alright.”

“It’s not,” Bobbi agreed. “But they seem nice, I guess.”

“Other kids?” Hunter asked. He had been in a few homes with other children when he was in foster care himself, ending in a home that gave him a permanent older brother when he had been adopted.

“Three in the house, but they kept talking about someone named Mack? So maybe four?” Bobbi said. She hadn’t been paying much attention and only the kids in the house really mattered to her, since they were the ones she had to live with. “Two girls and a boy. They’re all younger than me.”

“Oof.”

“Oof,” Bobbi agreed. There weren’t many ways a child in the house could be older than her, given that Bobbi only had nine months until she turned eighteen, but Bobbi didn’t have any practice at all at being an older sister. She hoped things didn’t get _too_ messy. 

“You know I’m here for you, right, Bob?”

“Of course.” Hunter was the most constant thing in her life, and had been since they’d started dating two years ago. “I just… don’t really know what to say.”

Hunter hummed his agreement, the sound buzzing through Bobbi’s chest and filling her with warmth. The best thing about Hunter was that he didn’t have to pretend to understand what it was like to be a foster kid and be shuttled around from home to home; he had lived it himself, so there was no faux sympathy. 

“We can talk about it on Monday, if you want,” he offered when Bobbi still hadn’t spoken after a minute of silence.

She blew out a breath through her mouth. “I’m transferring schools.”

“Oh.” Hunter paused. “Do you reckon your foster parents will still let you come to our homecoming?”

“I really hope so.” Bobbi caught her lip between her teeth, resisting the urge to chew on it. Her therapist had said that was a bad habit, something about redirecting her anxieties in a self-destructive manner. Ugh. New home probably meant a new therapist, too. “I don’t want this to ruin senior year.”

“It won’t, love,” Hunter assured her. “Things will just look different. We can do different.”

“We can,” Bobbi agreed with a small smile. 

There was a knock on the bedroom door, and Bobbi sighed. “One sec,” she said, putting the phone down on her bed and crossing to open the door. Daisy stood on the other side, a neatly folded pile of clothes in her arms.

“Sorry, were you busy?” 

“It’s fine,” Bobbi said in a non-answer.

“Mom wanted me to give you these to sleep in until you can go to the store,” Daisy said, offering the stack of clothes. “No one in the house is really your size but these were things Mack never used and he’s bigger than you, so…”

“Thanks,” Bobbi said, accepting the pile into her arms. It was then she noticed the chocolate bar balanced on top.

“Mom thinks you’re too skinny,” Daisy informed her when she saw Bobbi looking.

“She told you that?” Bobbi blanched.

“No, but she had a look in her eye.” Daisy said with a small smile. “She did it to Fitz when he came here, too. I think it’s just a foster parent thing.”

“Right.”

“Mom also wanted me to tell you that you can sleep in tomorrow, in case you were worried about that.” Bobbi hadn’t been, since she wasn’t going to school - it hadn’t occurred to her she’d need to be up early for any other reason. “You guys can just go to the store whenever you wake up.”

“Cool,” Bobbi answered. She knew she wasn’t doing her part in keeping the conversation going, but there wasn’t much for her to ask that wouldn’t come off as rude. 

“I’ll let you be,” Daisy said finally. “If you, um, want to talk or anything I normally stay up pretty late. I’ll just be in the basement.”

“Thanks, Daisy.” Bobbi tried to put some measure of gratitude behind her words, but she worried they just fell flat. She _was_ glad someone in the house cared about getting to know her, but that relief was still buried under layers of other emotions she didn’t want to acknowledge or explore. “And thanks for the chocolate.”

“No problem.” Daisy gave an awkward little wave before bounding back down the stairs, leaving Bobbi to return to her phone on her bed.

“You still there?” she asked when she picked it up.

“Yup.”

“Apparently I’m going shopping with my foster mom tomorrow,” Bobbi said.

“That’s a good sign, right?”

“Depends, I guess.” Bobbi sighed. “I don’t _think_ they’re going to be the ‘pick everything from the sale rack’ kind of people, considering the size of this house, but…”

“The size of the house?”

“Oh my God, Hunter, it’s _huge_. I would not be surprised if they had a movie theatre in their basement or something.”

“Pool?”

“I did not ask. But again, it wouldn't surprise me.”

“What do they do for a living?”

“No clue.” The next week or so would be spent gathering that information - who Mack was, what Phil and Melinda did, _what their last name was_ , and a whole host of other things she wanted to know but didn’t have the guts to ask. 

“As long as they don’t hurt you, I guess,” Hunter said with a sigh.

“If they do you’ll be the first person to know,” Bobbi promised. She trusted Hunter, and Hunter’s moms were basically the only adults in her life she trusted, too. If anything went horribly wrong she still had the barest semblance of a fallback plan. “I should probably get ready for bed,” Bobbi said a minute later. She wouldn’t be sleeping for a while, but if she didn’t let Hunter go soon he wouldn’t be able to finish his homework.

“You going to be able to sleep without Birdie?”

Bobbi blushed bright red. “I’ll be fine, Hunter.” She was seventeen, she didn’t need her dumb stuffed animal, even if the bed did feel kind of big and lonely with nothing else in it.

“If you need me tonight, you call me, okay?” Hunter asked.

“You have school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and?”

Bobbi huffed a sigh into the phone. She knew her boyfriend was a stubborn idiot, but he was _her_ stubborn idiot, and she supposed she ought to be glad he thought she was more important than school. “You doing well is important. Vic and Izzy won’t be happy if your grades start slipping.”

“One sleepless night is not going to make me fail my classes, Bob.” Bobbi didn’t need to see Hunter’s face to know he was rolling his eyes at her. “Please just let me worry about you?”

“There’s nothing to worry about. I promise.”

“Okay.” Hunter cleared his throat into the phone. “I love you.”

Bobbi smiled, holding the phone closer to her ear like it would somehow bring Hunter closer to her, too. She’d give an awful lot for one of his hugs right now. “I know. Don’t do anything dumb wtihout me tomorrow, okay?”

“No promises.”

“ _Lance._ ”

“Fine, fine. Sleep well, Bob.”

She half wanted to play the stupid _no you hang up first_ game, but Bobbi stopped herself before the words could actually get out of her mouth. Hunter would think something was wrong if she did that. 

Nothing was wrong, really. It was just that now with the call ended, alone in a strange bedroom, Bobbi had to confront the fact that this was not her home. This was not the place she’d spent the last two years, with someone who loved her. Even if her nana wasn’t the best at always remembering to take care of her, Bobbi knew that she tried. She had thought her grandmother loved her, too, but her willingness to sign away her rights was making Bobbi doubt even that.

And now Hunter had gotten her thinking about Birdie, and all Bobbi wanted was to cuddle the stupid toy. She took a deep breath in through her mouth and blew it out slowly, fighting back tears. She would be fine, with or without Birdie.

She would be fine, because she always was. 


	3. september, part 3

By the time Bobbi woke up the next morning, the other kids had already left for school. Phil had driven Daisy so he could talk with the people at the office about registering Bobbi for her classes, which meant she was home alone with Melinda.

Her foster mother was sitting at the table nursing a mug when Bobbi came down the stairs around eight, but the unmistakable smell of coffee was absent. Bobbi didn’t question it, just slid into the chair across from her at the kitchen table.

“What do you want for breakfast?” Melinda asked, nearly folding the newspaper she had been reading. “We’ve got cereal, some toaster waffles, peanut butter and Nutella for toast, fruit…?”

“I don’t normally eat breakfast.”

“It’s a good habit to get into,” Melinda said.

“I guess.” Bobbi shrugged. She had never eaten breakfast before and she was fine, so why start now?

“Do you want anything?” 

“No, thank you.”

“Are you ready to go to the store?” Melinda asked, her smile tight around the edges.

“Do you have a hairbrush I can use? I didn’t want to use Kora’s without asking her permission.” There had been an extra toothbrush set out for her when Bobbi woke up and her clothes from yesterday were still clean enough that she could wear them again, but her hair was matted down from sleep.

“You can use mine for now and we can get you a new one at the store,” Melinda offered. “Do you want to see the list I made?”

Bobbi nodded and Melinda produced a list from inside her purse. She scribbled something at the bottom - hairbrush, Bobbi presumed - before handing it over.

It was all pretty standard stuff to begin with - shirts, pants, socks, shoes, dresses and skirts both with question marks by them, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, a backpack, some school supplies - but by the time Bobbi got to the bottom of the list she was blushing. Bras ( _size?_ ), pads ( _or tampons?_ ), condoms. Condoms! That must’ve been added last night after she mentioned having a boyfriend, Bobbi decided. 

“I use pads, not tampons.” Bobbi said, failing to fight down the blush rising in her neck and cheeks. “And I don’t need condoms.” Even if she and Hunter were having sex - which they weren’t - she wasn’t going to admit that to her foster mother after knowing her for less than twenty-four hours.

Melinda took the list back with a nod, marking off the two items Bobbi said she didn’t need. “Is there anything else you want to add?”

“No, thank you.” It was already expensive enough to buy a teenager an entire wardrobe without adding other frivolous things to the list.

“Alright. We’ll also be talking about your allowance sometime soon, and if you need anything Phil or I can take you to the store.”

“I have my driver’s license,” Bobbi offered quietly. She didn’t anticipate needing anything so important she couldn’t wait to get it, and she’d rather not be asking Phil or Melinda to ferry her back and forth. Getting an allowance was already a new thing, and she didn’t want to push her luck.

“Then we can talk about driving later, too,” Melinda said. She pulled out another piece of paper from her purse and wrote something on it before putting it back where it had come from. Melinda liked to make lists - that was good to know. “Now, hairbrush?”

Bobbi’s hair didn’t take long to untangle with a proper brush, and in short order she and Melinda were on their way to the store. 

“I didn’t know your grandmother had taught you how to drive,” Melinda said as she pulled out of the neighborhood. “From what Robert - Mr. Gonzales - said it sounded like she didn’t have a license herself.”

“She didn’t. My boyfriend’s moms were the ones who taught me.” It had been a pretty good system, actually - Izzy would pick her up from her nana’s house and make her drive to the Hartley home. She and Hunter would spend time together, watching a movie or playing a game, before Vic took Hunter driving and Izzy took Bobbi. They’d all come back together for dinner, then Vic would make Bobbi drive them back to her nana’s house. She’d spent practically every day the summer before her junior year like that, and most Saturdays of the school year, too. 

“You two have been together for a while, then?” Melinda guessed.

“Two years.”

“That’s a long time for kids your age.”

“We make it work.” Both being foster kids had given them something to bond over initially, but Bobbi’s relationship with Hunter had grown beyond that quickly. He listened to her when she talked, something she hadn’t really had since her parents had died, and when things changed and she moved in with her nana, Hunter had stayed the same. 

“How old were you and Phil when you got married?” Bobbi asked, hoping to avoid another question about her relationship with Hunter.

“I was twenty-one and Phil was twenty-three.”

Bobbi whistled, and something warm lodged in her chest when Melinda smiled at her.

“Are you thinking about marriage, then?” Melinda prodded gently. Bobbi bit back a sigh. So much for avoiding questions about herself.

“His moms want us to wait until after he graduates college.”

“And are you going to?”

“I’m not the one doing the proposing.” Never mind that she had thought about the answer to the question regardless. Logic told her that getting married young probably wasn’t the best idea - if they were meant to be together it wouldn’t matter if they took another year or five to get down the aisle - but her oft-ignored feelings told her that if Hunter asked her to marry him, she would say yes. 

She never had been much good at saying no to him.

Melinda just nodded her response and returned her focus to driving. Melinda pulled into the parking lot of the Target and Bobbi looked around the shopping center curiously. She had never been in this part of the county before, and the shopping center was larger than any she’d seen before. There was the Target they were parked in front of, but also a Walmart, a Kohl’s, a Giant, some hobby store, and a handful of fast food places.

“We should be able to get everything we need at Target,” Melinda said, catching Bobbi’s attention again. She nodded, getting out of the car and shutting the door behind herself quickly.

Bobbi fell into step behind Melinda easily; even if her foster mother was several inches shorter than her, she walked quickly and purposefully. Melinda steered them into the woman’s clothing section and stopped in the center.

“What do you like?” she asked when Bobbi still hadn’t moved after a full minute. The amount of clothing hanging around her would’ve been overwhelming even without the knowledge that she had to build her entire wardrobe from scratch, and she was busy trying to take everything in.

“Um…” What she _liked_ hadn’t played a role in her clothing shopping… well, ever. Before her parents had died her mom had always picked her clothes out for her, and after that there were considerations about what her various caregivers could afford. 

Melinda frowned and Bobbi bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to be difficult - she just didn’t know where to start when faced with so many choices.

“Sorry -” she began.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Melinda interrupted. “Let’s go look at something easier and we’ll come back when we’ve done the rest of our shopping, okay?”

Bobbi nodded, following Melinda into the area of the clothing section devoted to undergarments. That was easier - plain black, white, and nude had always served Bobbi well. She hesitated in front of the selection of sports bras, but only for a moment before picking a multi-color one from the pile. She looked to Melinda for permission and her foster mother nodded encouragingly, so Bobbi placed it in the cart with the other bras. 

It only occurred to Bobbi that she hadn’t checked a single price tag when they had already walked away from the clothing section. She glanced at Melinda out of the corner of her eye, weighing her options. She could try to sneak a few items out of the cart, but Bobbi had a feeling she’d be caught. It probably wasn’t worth the fight.

“Do you want to get a pair of running shoes?” Melinda asked when they passed by the shoe aisle.

“Why?”

“You said you run,” Melinda answered patiently. Right - Bobbi had mentioned it at dinner last night. She hadn’t realized Melinda was actually listening. “Running shoes can keep you from getting injured.”

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Bobbi said. She’d been running in her old tennis shoes for years and nothing bad had happened.

“Bobbi,” Melinda said softly. “We don’t want you to get hurt.”

Bobbi swallowed past the lump that suddenly appeared in her throat. “I’d have to see if the new school’s done track tryouts yet,” she said finally. No point in getting expensive running shoes if she wasn’t even going to run, was there?

“Okay.” Melinda pressed her lips together and even though she wasn’t frowning, Bobbi got the impression she’d done something to disappoint her foster mother. At least that wasn’t anything new.

They went through the rest of the store picking up everything on Melinda’s list, from Bobbi’s favorite shampoo to a new loofa. She got a new hairbrush that was sturdy and a different color from Kora’s - a pastel teal color to contrast with the bright pink of Kora’s.

“Is that your favorite color?” Melinda asked when Bobbi picked it out.

Bobbi shrugged. “I like blue, I guess. It’s Hunter’s favorite color.”

“Hunter?”

“My boyfriend,” Bobbi answered, belatedly realizing she’d never actually referred to him by name.

“You talk about him a lot,” Melinda said as she started pushing the shopping cart again.

“I don’t really have a lot of other friends.” Bobbi shrugged. “I moved halfway through the school year when I went to my old school, so everyone pretty much had their friends already.” There hadn’t been room for Bobbi in any of her old school’s friend groups - which wasn’t to say the other kids were _mean_ to her, just that she’d never gotten close enough to anyone to feel comfortable sharing much about her life. People knew she was in foster care - her foster parents before her nana had never done anything to hide that or try to make her life seem more normal - and that was all they thought they needed to know. That was true for everyone except one scrawny kid who’d just gotten out of the foster care system himself. Hunter had plopped himself down beside her at lunch time and refused to leave until she told him her name, and that was the beginning and the end of everything.

“It sounds like you had a rough go of things,” Melinda said, pulling Bobbi from her reminiscing.

“I mean, it could be worse. I’ve got him now.” She shrugged. She’d accepted a long time ago that she was going to have to look out for herself; Hunter was a pleasant addition to her bubble of people she could trust to care about her, but she’d gotten by before him, too.

“I’m glad you have someone you think you can trust.”

Bobbi bristled. She didn’t _think_ she could trust Hunter - she knew she could. He had been there for her even when every adult in her life had failed her, even when -

She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself loosely as she and Melinda continued walking through the store. They had looped back around to the front, and the dreaded women's clothing section loomed in front of Bobbi once again.

She could do this. She could get some T shirts, some nicer blouses, a few pairs of jeans, a jacket, and call it a day.

 _Start with something blue_ , Bobbi told herself. She didn’t have an overwhelming preference for blue, but Hunter liked it, she liked making him happy, and she needed someplace to start to keep from standing and staring like she had earlier in the day.

Bobbi drifted towards a cornflower blue graphic tee that had the Star Wars logo printed on it in white ink. Hunter liked blue, she liked Star Wars, and they had the tee in her size. One item down, who knew how many more to go.

Melinda continued watching her as Bobbi painstakingly picked her way through the clothing section, trying to find items she would actually enjoy wearing that weren’t too expensive. And that was just the beginning of Bobbi’s criteria; there was a cute peach shirt with _Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda_ written on it and a pastel rainbow tee that Bobbi deemed too unsafe when she was still trying to figure out where Melinda and Phil stood on various issues. She was cautiously optimistic they were at least not virulently homophobic with their speech about keeping her bedroom door open and Melinda’s non-reaction to Bobbi’s multiple mentions of Hunter’s moms, but that didn’t mean they’d be okay with their foster daughter parading around in rainbow clothing.

“Is this good?” Bobbi asked when she’d picked out as much clothing as she dared.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything else? It’s going to get cold soon.”

Bobbi sighed, but she had to admit Melinda was right; winters in Ohio weren’t a joke and she had mostly picked out short sleeved clothing. She threw a sweater and a sweatshirt on top of the pile she’d already amassed and turned to Melinda for approval.

“We’ll take you shopping again when Daisy and Kora look for their new winter coats,” was all her foster mother said. Bobbi’s shoulders sagged when Melinda turned around; again she got the impression she had let Melinda down without having any idea _how_. 

Melinda grabbed a few more things Bobbi assumed they needed around the house before taking them through the checkout line. Bobbi tried her best not to pay attention to the total ticking up, biting her lip and turning away as it flew past one hundred dollars before the cart was even half-empty.

“Is it okay if we stop by the Giant?” Melinda asked as they wheeled out of the Target with their purchases. “They just restocked Kora’s favorite snack and I promised her I’d get some.”

Bobbi nodded. “What’s Kora’s favorite?” she asked.

“Blue raspberry gummy sharks,” Melinda answered. They reached the car and Bobbi opened the trunk to begin loading in the clothing. “Kora likes the ones that have cherry syrup inside. It’s supposed to look like blood, I think.”

“Kora does know that people kill more sharks than sharks kill people, right?” Bobbi asked. 

“I’ve told her.” Melinda offered a small smile. “I think she just likes the cherry flavor.”

“Good,” Bobbi said as she put the last bag in the trunk. “Because there’s already enough stigma against sharks without people adding to it.”

“Mr. Gonzales said you’re interested in biology?” Melinda asked, shutting the trunk.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Bobbi said with a shrug. “If I was going to college that’s what I’d want to study, I think.” 

Melinda nodded, clicked the lock to the car, and began leading Bobbi to the Giant. “Maybe you can help Kora with her science homework, then. Fitz tries but he gets frustrated pretty easily.”

“Teaching is hard,” Bobbi said. “But I helped tutor Hunter and that was fun.”

“Was it just fun because he was your boyfriend?” Melinda asked. Bobbi blinked. Was her foster mother teasing her? She thought so, given the smile

“I mean, that was before we started dating, so…” she answered awkwardly, shoving her hands into her pockets.

Melinda just nodded again. They reached the entrance to the Giant and Melinda grabbed a shopping basket from the tower. 

“Are there any snacks you like?” she asked.

“Um.” Bobbi forced herself not to catch her lip between her teeth again - if she kept biting it, it would get bloody and raw. “I like cheese curls. And popcorn with extra butter.”

“Phil likes extra-butter popcorn too, so there’s plenty in the house already,” Melinda informed her. “I’ll show you where in the pantry everything is, and you’re welcome to as much as you want. Just make sure you don’t ruin your dinner.”

Bobbi nodded her head in a nod. “Is it okay if I get something for Daisy?” she asked when they began walking down the candy aisle. She doubted her foster sister had given her the chocolate bar with the expectation of getting something in return, but if they were already buying candy…

Melinda raised her eyebrows. “Sure, if you want to.”

“What does she like?” Bobbi asked, hovering in front of the chocolate section. That had been what Daisy gave her, so it would be appropriate to give chocolate too, right?

“She likes caramel. And pretzels. And nuts,” Melinda offered. “Really, give her anything and chocolate and she’ll be happy.”

“Do you think she’d like this?” Bobbi asked, picking up a turtle chocolate bar. It had caramel and pecans, so it combined two of Daisy’s likes into one bar.

“Yes,” Melinda answered softly. “I think she would.”

“I guess we should get something for Fitz too, right?” Bobbi asked. She’d feel bad going home with candy for Kora and Daisy and nothing for her new foster brother.

“Fitz likes sour candy,” Melinda said before Bobbi could ask.

She nodded to herself and swept down the candy aisle to where the gummy candies were. She handed a package of gummy sharks to Melinda after checking they had the cherry filling, then inspected the offering of sour candies. There were Sour Patch Kids, obviously, but also Warhead gummies and sour punch straws and even sour Starburst.

Sour Patch Kids were the classic, though, so Bobbi grabbed a package of them and added them to the basket, too.

“What do you like?” Bobbi asked when she turned back to Melinda.

“I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”

“You don’t like _any_ candy?”

“You haven’t picked out anything for yourself.”

“I don’t need anything,” Bobbi deflected quickly.

“I know you don’t _need_ anything,” Melinda said. “But do you _want_ anything?”

 _I_ want _to be at home with my nana,_ Bobbi thought, shoving her hands into her pockets. Sure, her new foster family was nice and it was probably for the better that she wasn’t with her nana anymore, but… with her nana she didn’t have to ask questions about what anyone liked, and if she wanted something she could just get it when she did the grocery shopping. And sure, sometimes getting herself candy wasn’t possible on the budget they had, but…

“I’m fine,” she mumbled.

“Let’s go get you those cheese curls, then. How about McDonald’s for lunch?”

Bobbi agreed readily, trailing after Melinda as they went deeper into the grocery store.

\---

Bobbi lifted her head from her pillow when she heard the front door open. She had just finished hanging her newly-purchased clothes in her closer and hadn’t been sure what else to do before dinner, but based on the time, it seemed like Daisy was home from school.

Melinda had put Fitz and Kora’s candies in their respective rooms, but had allowed Bobbi to hold onto the chocolate bar she’d chosen for Daisy so Bobbi could hand-deliver it. She grabbed the candy bar from her night stand and padded down the stairs quickly.

“Bobbi!” Phil said when he saw her. “Do you have a minute?”

Bobbi glanced around - it seemed like Daisy had already retreated to the basement - before nodding.

“Awesome. Come here.” Bobbi followed him to the kitchen table, and watched warily as Phil began pulling papers out of his briefcase.

“This is your class schedule,” he said, sliding one of the papers over to her. “I had a copy of the classes you were taking at your old school, so they transferred you into the classes they thought were most similar. The office said you could try this schedule for a week and have a meeting with your school counselor if you need any changes.”

Bobbi nodded, eyes flicking over the schedule. AP English, AP Biology, AP Psychology, AP History… She hadn’t been in AP classes at her old school, but she wasn’t going to ask Phil about it.

“Here’s a map of the school. Daisy marked where all your classrooms are on the car ride home. She might’ve made some other notes, too - I didn’t look.” Bobbi accepted the next paper with slightly more interest. Her new high school was bigger than her older one, but hopefully the map helped her not get lost. There was a huge X drawn over one of the hallways, which Bobbi was going to have to ask about when she went to deliver Daisy’s gift.

“And here’s seven copies of the note the office wrote up for your teachers explaining the situation.” 

“Can I read it?” Bobbi asked as she took the stack of papers.

“Sure, if you’d like.”

Bobbi skimmed, but the letter didn’t seem to be anything bad - just that Bobbi was a student transferring in and her schedule was liable to change depending on how her first week of class went. There was one mention of foster care but it was quick enough that Bobbi guessed most teachers wouldn’t think too hard about it. That would be good for her; her first time as a high schooler in foster care hadn’t been fun thanks to her foster family’s insistence that everyone know Bobbi was a _foster_ child.

“You won’t have to make up any homework you missed, but the office ladies did say your AP teachers would probably want you to do the readings so you’d be prepared for the test.”

“The AP tests cost money,” Bobbi said uncertainly, looking up at Phil.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, okay?” Phil asked. 

Bobbi nodded. She could do one step at a time, if she was thinking about it - she was just much better at seeing several steps ahead, so she could avoid problems before they happened.

“Cap normally gets his afternoon walk when Daisy comes home from school, if you’re still interested in that being your chore,” Phil said as Bobbi gathered her pile of papers.

“Can I go talk to Daisy first?” Bobbi asked.

Phil cocked an eyebrow. “Sure, go ahead.”

Bobbi descended to the basement slowly, but was grateful to find Daisy’s bedroom didn’t take up the entirety of the basement. There _was_ a home theatre, and Bobbi smirked to herself, making a mental note to text Hunter later. He was staying late at school because the first run of the school’s newspaper was going out on Monday, and as editor-in-chief he had to make sure every last detail was just as it ought to be.

Daisy’s room was easy to spot, thanks to the bright yellow-and-white flowers painted on the door. Bobbi knocked.

“Come in!”

The room was brighter than Bobbi would’ve expected from someone who favored dark eyeliner and beanies, and airier than a basement room had any right to be. Daisy was propped on the bed by a pile of pillows, laptop perched on her lap.

“I, uh, got this for you when Melinda and I went to the store today,” Bobbi said, shuffling closer to Daisy and holding out the chocolate bar awkwardly.

Daisy set the laptop aside, accepting the candy. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” Bobbi answered, shuffling around the papers she was still holding just to have something to do. “But I wanted to say thank you. For being nice.”

“It’s really no big deal,” Daisy insisted. “I don’t remember much about when I first got to Phil and Melinda’s but Trip being nice to me made a lot of difference.”

“Who’s Trip?” Bobbi asked, deciding that was a better question than _you were adopted?_ She had gotten the impression Daisy and Kora were Phil and Melinda’s biological children.

“He’s one of my older brothers. Mack’s the other one.” Daisy put the chocolate down on her nightstand and grabbed a picture frame, which she handed to Bobbi. The picture looked a year or two old, and had obviously been taken at Christmastime, if the Santa hat on Phil’s head was any indication.

“Mack’s the one standing behind Mom. The woman next to him is Elena, and then that’s Trip,” Daisy said, pointing to the other man in the photo Bobbi didn’t recognize.

“They look nice,” Bobbi said, handing the photo back. Daisy settled it back into place carefully, and Bobbi’s heart tugged. It would be nice to have a photo of her family like that, one that she treasured. The closest she had was a worn photo from her eleventh birthday party. Her parents had been wearing a stupid birthday hat and instead of laughing Bobbi had been pouting. If she had known that was the last photo she’d have of her and her parents she would’ve smiled. 

“Mack normally drops by on the weekends, so you’ll meet him eventually. I think Mom and Dad asked him to skip this week so you’d have some time to adjust.” Daisy patted the bed next to her and Bobbi only hesitated a little before sinking onto the bed beside Daisy. “Are you okay?” Daisy asked softly. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“I don’t think your mom likes me very much,” Bobbi admitted quietly. 

“Dad calls her emotionally constipated,” Daisy informed Bobbi. “She likes you. It’s just been a long time since there’s been a new kid in the house and she’s bad at self-expression. Or something like that.” Daisy grimaced. “Dad had to give me the same lecture but that was like, ten years ago or something. And he used little-kid words, so…”

“Okay,” Bobbi sighed, still not entirely convinced. “I have to go walk the dog, so…”

“Do you like hugs?” Daisy asked abruptly.

“Uh. Sure?” Bobbi wasn’t sure why she was being asked that question.

“Can I give you one?”

Oh. That was why. 

“Sure,” Bobbi said, despite not being sure at all. She couldn’t remember the last time someone other than Hunter had hugged her, which probably should concern her.

Daisy wrapped her arms around Bobbi’s shoulders, and Bobbi couldn’t imagine not being sure about this. Daisy’s arms were careful and gentle, but not weak or hesitant. She smelled like unfamiliar shampoo and a faintly floral perfume, and after a moment of hesitation Bobbi let herself sink into the hug, wrapping her arms around Daisy in return.

Maybe this wasn’t home, but at least she had someone on her side. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! as you can see i've put in a guestimation of how many chapters there are left. i politely request you all refrain from laughing at me when that number inevitably becomes horribly inaccurate. ta!


	4. september, part 4

By the time Bobbi made it to her first period class, she already wanted to go home. She and Daisy had taken the bus to school and Daisy had spent the entire time before the first bell showing Bobbi the quickest routes from class to class and had even offered to walk Bobbi in between classes if she needed to. Bobbi didn’t think Melinda would be very happy if she made Daisy late to class even accidentally, so she had declined.

Daisy had waited with her outside the door of her first period classroom until the first bell rang, waving a hasty goodbye as she prepared to dash across the school to the technology wing.

Bobbi’s first class was AP Biology, which would’ve been a relief if she wasn’t already two weeks behind everyone else. Bobbi knew biology, she _understood_ biology. If she had to start the day with math, or worse, Home Ec, she probably wouldn’t make it through.

“You must be Bobbi,” her teacher (a young woman named Dr. Cho) said when she walked up to the desk. Bobbi nodded, handing over the letter from the office meekly.

“This all seems to be in order,” Dr. Cho said after she’d glanced over the letter. “Stay for a minute after class and I’ll give you your textbook and the list of readings you missed. You can take that desk at the back next to Anne.”

There were exactly thirty desks in the classroom, five rows of six. The rows of six were split into two groups of three with an aisle up the middle, and by the time Bobbi and Dr. Cho had finished talking, there was only one empty one - the back corner furthest by the door. Bobbi assumed the girl in the middle of her row of three was Anne, an assumption that was immediately proven correct.

“Hi,” the girl said when Bobbi put her stuff down. “I’m Anne.”

“Bobbi,” she answered with a tight smile.

“Transfer student?” Anne asked curiously. 

“Not exactly.” Bobbi pulled out the notebook she was going to be using for bio as well as a package of mechanical pencils Melinda had insisted she take with her. 

Anne didn’t seem fazed by Bobbi’s non-answer. “Cool. Do you need copies of the first few weeks of notes?”

“Um, Dr. Cho said she’d give me the textbook and the reading assignments after class. She didn’t mention the class notes,” Bobbi said. 

“If she says you can have a classmate’s copy, you’re more than welcome to mine,” Anne said. She flipped open her notebook and Bobbi blinked back her surprise at the orderly, color-coded notes Anne had apparently been taking since the beginning of the school year.

“Thanks,” Bobbi said faintly. “You really like bio?”

“I want to major in it when I go to college. I’m hoping to get a PhD, but I know I have to get through undergrad first, so, one step at a time.” Anne flipped to a new, clean page in her notebook, letting out a soft, contented sigh. “What about you?”

“This is my third time taking a bio class,” Bobbi admitted. “I’ve moved schools a lot.”

“That blows,” Anne said sympathetically. “Do you know anyone here?”

“Daisy Coulson. I’m staying with her family for a while.” Bobbi had expected that Fitz would also be going to school with her, but apparently he was going to some fancy magnet school so he could study engineering, leaving her and Daisy alone in the high school. 

A look of recognition crossed Anne’s face, and Bobbi prepared herself for the pity that would come after. Instead Anne just nodded. “I really like Daisy. She’s a good kid.”

“She is,” Bobbi agreed. Before she and Anne could say anything more to each other, the late bell rang and Dr. Cho moved to the front of the room to begin teaching.

“Let me know if you need any help getting around the school or anything, okay?” Anne asked fifty minutes later when the bell rang to signal class was over. “And let me know what Dr. Cho says about the notes!”

“Thanks, Anne,” Bobbi said gratefully. Anne had spent the class patiently explaining everything needed to know to finish the assigned classwork in time, and even though they’d mostly talked about school, bobbi was marginally less worried that everyone was going to be a jerk to her. She had never been good at making friends at her old school, but maybe a new school could mean new habits. _Maybe._ She wasn’t going to get ahead of herself.

Dr. Cho gave Bobbi her textbook and agreed that she could get copies of the class notes from Anne, as long as she also did the reading independently. Bobbi had been planning to do that anyways, so it wasn’t a hard trade-off.

She had to hurry to her second-period class, but scraped in just before the late bell. Just like in first period, she was sent to an empty desk in the back of the room. Her second class, introductory French, was entirely freshmen, and none of them seemed interested in talking to Bobbi.

So Anne being nice had been a fluke, just as Bobbi suspected.

Third period passed in the same way, but Bobib was delighted when she walked into fourth period and saw Anne sitting in the back of the room - right by an empty desk. There was significantly more pep in Bobbi’s step when her teacher once again sent her to the back, and she thudded down her pile of textbooks before sinking gratefully into the seat.

“How’s your day been?” Anne asked immediately. “Have you gotten lost yet?”

“No,” Bobbi answered, “Daisy showed me all my classes before school started so thankfully, not lost yet.”

“That’s a relief. Teachers are still having to fish freshmen out of the B wing, so…”

“I have a good memory for maps,” Bobbi said. 

“And other things, if you’re in more than one AP class,” Anne said. “How many are you taking?”

“Five.”

Anne grinned. “I thought I was the only one crazy enough to do that.”

“I didn’t exactly make my schedule,” Bobbi said. “I wasn’t in APs in my old school.”

Anne made a face. “Godspeed.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“I mean, I don’t think so. But it kind of depends on which ones you’re taking.”

“Here.” Bobbi fished her schedule out of her backpack and handed it to Anne, who studied it intently for a few seconds.

“We have the other fourth period and sixth period together, too,” Anne announced. Daisy had had to explain fourth period to Bobbi twice before she’d understand it. Fourth period was twice as long as the other period, and alternated every other day. Fourth period was also the lunch period, hence its length - there were four half-hour lunches, and each class was randomly assigned to one of the lunches to keep the amount of students in the cafeteria manageable. Daisy hadn’t known which of the lunches Bobbi had for either of her fourth periods, so it was a good thing Anne (presumably) did.

“So what did you do to get put at the back of the room twice?” Bobbi asked when Anne had scribbled down their lunch blocks onto Bobbi’s schedule.

“Oh, it’s alphabetical by last name. I’m a W so I always end up in the back. Weaver,” she added when Bobbi opened her mouth to ask.

“I’m an M,” Bobbi said. “Morse.”

“Good thing you came to school late, then,” Anne said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t get put next to each other.”

When Anne smiled at her, Bobbi smiled back. 

“If you want you can sit with me and my friends at lunch,” Anne offered. “None of them are in this class but we all have second lunch, so…”

“That would be nice,” Bobbi said. Not knowing which lunch she had meant she didn’t know whether or not Daisy would be there or if she’d have anyone to sit with.

“Just a warning, they can be kind of jerks sometimes.”

“I can deal with jerks,” Bobbi said. “My boyfriend is a jerk. But he’s my jerk.”

“Exactly.” Anne grinned. “Does your boyfriend still go to your old school?”

“Yeah,” Bobbi sighed. “I mean, I only moved last week so it hasn’t even been that long since I saw him, but it’s weird.”

Anne nodded, but didn’t say she understood. Bobbi appreciated that; she hated when people tried to compare their situation to her when it was objectively different. Most people would never understand what it was like to be a foster kid, and have your life turned upside down in one afternoon. 

When their lunch period came, Anne led Bobbi to the cafeteria. In the interest of not overwhelming her too much on the first day, Melinda had packed a lunch so Bobbi didn’t need to go through the lunch line. Anne also had a brown bag lunch, so she was able to lead Bobbi straight over to an empty table near the back of the cafeteria.

Bobbi was surprised to see a neon orange Post-It note on top of her lunch when she opened it. Melinda didn’t seem to be the kind of mother who wrote her kids notes.

Her confusion evaporated when the note turned out to be from Kora instead - _Have a great day!_ and a large, loopy smiley face signed with her name.

Bobbi tucked the note into the pocket of her jeans so she didn’t accidentally throw it away.

Anne nudged her, pointing to two girls approaching the table. “That’s Alisha and Cecelia Whitley. They’re identical twins, we went to preschool together.”

“Hey Anne,” one of the girls chirped. Anne wasn’t kidding about them being identical - even the pattern of the spray of freckles across their noses looked identical to Bobbi. “Who’s this?”

“Bobbi Morse. She’s in Bio and APUSH with me. She just started today,” Anne answered. “She’s going to sit with us.”

“Nice to meet you, Bobbi,” the other twin said. “Why’d you transfer?”

Bobbi sighed. No use beating around the bush. “I’m in foster care.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Bobbi mumbled, turning to her lunch. Beside the sandwich and juice box Melinda had packed, there was also a Ziploc bag full of cheese curls. Melinda had remembered. 

“Head’s up,” Anne said, nudging Bobbi with her elbow. Bobbi turned to see another pair of people walking towards their table. These two definitely weren’t twins, at least. “Tomas Calderon and Ollie Stewart. Ollie’s the one on the left, they’re non-binary. They use they/them pronouns.”

Bobbi nodded her understanding, glad Anne had given her the head’s up so she didn’t accidentally stick her foot in her mouth.

“This is everyone,” Anne said once Ollie and Tomas had both sat down. “Ollie, Toe-Head, this is Bobbi Morse.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Bobbi said.

Tomas nodded and Ollie smiled, giving her a wave. 

The group struck up a conversation about what they had done over the weekend but Bobbi didn’t contribute - she just sat and ate her cheese curls.

\---

“How was your first day of school?” Phil asked when Bobbi came through the door. She startled - Phil hadn’t been there when she’d left for the morning, and she’d assumed he’d be at work all day.

“It was fine.” Nothing after lunch had been eventful, except for that the sewing unit in her Home Ec class was possibly going to kill her and she’d gotten to sit next to Anne again in their last period, English. 

“Bobbi didn’t get lost even once!” Daisy said as they both made their way to the kitchen. “And she didn’t have to go through the Hell Hallway either.”

“Daisy,” Phil said, giving her a stern look.

Bobbi looked away from him, dropping the stack of textbooks she’d amassed on the table with a huff of relief. Every class except for Home Ec had given her a textbook, and they were _heavy_.

“What do you want me to call it, the Heck Hallway?” Daisy asked.

Phil shook his head good-naturedly. “Mr. Gonzales came by earlier and dropped off some things from your nana’s. He told me to apologize on his behalf for being a little late, but they’re all in your room now.”

“Thanks,” Bobbi said, excitement dripping through her against her better judgement. _Some things_ probably didn’t mean everything she’d left at her nana’s, but she hoped at least the important stuff was there. 

“Where’s Cap’s leash?” she asked. Even if she was excited to get back to her room, she still had chores to do.

“I’ll walk Cap today. You go see what Mr. Gonzales left.”

“Thanks, Phil!” Bobbi dashed up the stairs before he could change his mind, throwing open the door to her room.

There were two garbage bags on the bed, and Bobbi tried not to let that sting. She dumped them both out onto the floor, looking for two things and two things only. The first she found quickly - a worn blue bird plush. Bobbi scooped Birdie up into her arms, squeezing tightly. It had been embarrassingly hard to sleep without her stuffed animal, and Bobbi was relieved to have Birdie back.

Bobbi settled Birdie into her lap as she sifted through the rest of the things Mr. Gonzales brought. She sorted her library books into a neat stack, reminding herself to ask Phil and Melinda to drive her to the library sometime so she could drop them off. There were a couple of school papers she didn’t need anymore since she was taking classes at a different school, and those went into a separate pile. Bobbi was just about to give up hope when she spotted it - her picture.

She really should’ve put it in a frame, but every time Bobbi saw the last picture she had of her and her parents, she had an explicable urge to trace her fingers over her mother’s smile, her father’s pointed hat, the streamers in the corner. If she thought hard enough she could almost take herself back to that day, when the only thing she’d had to worry about was how embarrassing her parents were.

Bobbi sniffled, holding the photo away from her so she wouldn’t smudge it by crying. It was already faded enough from how much she touched it; she had to be careful or she might wear everything away completely.

She put Birdie on her bed and the photo on her nightstand, feeling much better now that she had them both in her possession and knew they were safe.

Her phone buzzed with a message from Hunter.

_[Hunter]: How was your first day?_

_[Bobbi]: Okay_

_[Bobbi]: Mr. Gonzales brought me Birdie_

_[Hunter]: To school?_

_[Bobbi]: No, to Phil and Melinda’s house_

_[Bobbi]: Why would he bring it to school?_

_[Hunter]: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_

Bobbi laughed at Hunter’s response, and proceeded to tell him about her day, including the new maybe-friend she had made and the boatload of work she had in front of her to get caught up. It would’ve been easy to make it through two weeks of schoolwork if she wasn’t also trying to do the homework from that day in class. She had been texting Hunter all weekend, so he was up-to-date on everything else that had happened, and she knew what was going on with him - namely, that everything was going well in his life, just as it should be.

_[Hunter]: I’m sorry, Bob._

_[Bobbi]: What for?_

_[Hunter]: You know what for._

_[Bobbi]: Don’t be sorry. I had a good day._

Bobbi bit her lip as she waited for Hunter’s reply. He hadn’t told her outright that Vic and Izzy would be filing a report with CPS about what her nana was doing - or rather, what she wasn’t doing - but Bobbi had been able to put the pieces together when last week he’d started asking about what she would do if she had to go back into the system. She’d told him the truth, which was that she would be fine, and then a few days later Mr. Gonzales had showed up at her school. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened.

She understood why he was feeling guilty. The system wasn’t a good place to be, even if you did get a relatively good family like Bobbi had seemed to this time around. Still, the five days she’d spent at the Coulson household had made her realize everything she was missing with her nana. She got three meals a day (Melinda had insisted on her eating breakfast that morning) and no one ever seemed to be shocked to see her in the house like they had forgotten she lived there, too. Bobbi would say that the Coulson family was a good fit for her, at least so far. 

Maybe she would be singing a different tune if she’d gone back to a family like one of her previous foster families who didn’t give a damn about her, but… Bobbi would always appreciate that Hunter tried to do what was best for her. Sure, she would’ve appreciated a bit more of a head’s up, but he was doing his best.

They were both doing their best.

A knock came at the door and Bobbi left her phone on the floor with the rest of Gonzales’s things so she could answer the question Phil was asking about dinner. When she came back, Hunter had figured out what to say and left her a string of messages.

_[Hunter]: I just want you to know I love you too much to see you hurting like that_

_[Hunter]: I asked my mums if they would take you in but they said it wouldn’t be appropriate since we’re dating_

_[Hunter]: So I figured foster care was better than breaking up_

_[Hunter]: Or maybe not. I don’t know._

_[Bobbi]: No breaking up, please._

_[Bobbi]: I am okay, Lance. I promise_

_[Bobbi]: Love you to the moon_

_[Hunter]: And back_

_[Bobbi]: <3_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took so long! I started a new job in January and signed up for like three different fic bingos against my better judgement, so this got put on a back burner. If you ever want to see what I'm up to (or just chat), my [tumblr](https://bobbimorseisbisexual.tumblr.com/) is the place to be. :)


	5. september, part 5

Bobbi couldn’t stop shaking.

Her first week of school while living with the Coulsons hadn’t been awful; after the awkwardness of having to introduce herself to her teachers on Monday it was easy for her to fade into the background, especially while sitting at the back of the room. Anne continued to be nice to her even though Bobbi couldn’t contribute much to any normal high schooler conversation. The only part about her life that approached normal was her relationship with Hunter, but Anne and all of her friends were single so it didn’t come up often.

She wasn’t shaking because of school, though. She was shaking because she was finally going to meet the oldest Coulson sibling, and she was scared.

Daisy had spent the entire week telling Bobbi stories about Mack and what he was like when he was living in the house with her. It was obvious she adored him, and so did Kora and Fitz. If Mack didn’t like her, Bobbi was as good as sunk with the rest of the Coulsons - except maybe Phil and Melinda, but Melinda didn’t seem to particularly like her anyways, so that wouldn’t be too big of a loss.

Bobbi sighed and wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. Mack was supposed to be there any minute for his weekend visit, and if he wanted a handshake she was not going to go into it with sweaty hands. It was bad enough the nerves were making her shake; it would be even worse if someone noticed. 

Cap let out a peal of loud barks, which probably meant Mack had arrived. Bobbi gulped before padding down the stairs. The rest of the family was already in the den, chattering excitedly. 

The front door opened and the family moved as one towards the entranceway. Daisy got there first and dashed into the waiting arms of her older brother. 

None of the photos Bobbi had seen had done justice to just how tall and broad Mack was. She had to look up to look him in the eyes, and he made her feel small, which didn’t happen often. Bobbi shuffled behind Phil, allowing the Coulson siblings to greet their brother with as much enthusiasm as they wanted without feeling guilty about forgetting about her. Behind Mack was a woman Bobbi had also seen in photos, albeit fewer of them - Elena, Mack’s wife. Elena seemed to sense Bobbi’s eyes on her and looked over, smiling. Bobbi blushed, averting her gaze. It was impolite to stare, even if she was staring at more new people she was supposed to know.

It was hard enough already to remember everything about the people she lived with. Melinda didn’t drink coffee but Phil didn’t drink tea, Fitz’s real name was Leo but Bobbi was never to call him that, Kora and Daisy were biologically related but not Phil and Melinda’s biological children, and all of them had entirely different tastes in movies that led to last night’s family movie night being a competition to figure out whose movie would reign supreme. Bobbi appreciated that Mack had skipped his visit last weekend to keep her from getting overwhelmed, but honestly, visiting now wasn’t much better in terms of preventing information overload. 

“Mack,” Elena said, nudging her husband’s elbow, “is there someone you’re forgetting to say hello to?”

“She’s hiding, Yo-Yo, she doesn’t want me saying hi to her,” Mack answered, releasing Daisy from the bear hug he had been giving her. Bobbi blushed, unsure whether she ought to stop trying to hide behind Phil (who was honestly too short to hide her, anyways) or double down and try to disappear completely.

“Bobbi, this is Mack,” Daisy said, grabbing Bobbi’s hand and dragging her forward. Bobbi almost tripped over Cap, who was still underfoot, but caught herself before she fell into Mack. That would’ve been the worst first impression ever. “You can call him Alphonso if he gets naughty, though.”

“Just Mack is fine,” the man in question said with a shake of his hand and a fond chuckle. “It’s nice to meet you, Bobbi.”

“You too,” Bobbi said, hating that her voice came out a squeak. 

“Come on,” Fitz groaned. “I have something to show Mack and I can’t show him if we just stand around talking all day!”

“Fitz,” Melinda said warningly.

“Sorry, Mum,” he sighed. “What I meant to say is, can we go to the den, please?”

Bobbi still marveled at how the Coulson family could move en masse without anyone tripping on anyone else. Bobbi floated at the back of the group since she hadn’t yet figured out how not to get trampled by the family. At least the dog was with her.

“They get easier to handle eventually.”

Bobbi startled at the unexpected voice, but nodded at Elena nonetheless. “I hope so.”

Elena just smiled and followed the rest of the family into the den.

Another thing Bobbi had learned at family movie night, beyond just how contentious movie-picking was, was that everyone in the family had their place. The seating arrangements shifted with Mack now in the mix, but the same thing that had been true last night was true now: there was no place for Bobbi to sit. She plopped on the floor, crossing her legs under her. Soon she’d be able to politely excuse herself and leave the rest of the family to their bonding time. It was obvious she didn’t belong there.

Bobbi tried not to look as miserable as she felt as she sat on the floor, listening to the sound of a happy family just… talking. It had happened every night that week at dinner, too, but no matter how many times she had to listen to the Coulson family being normal, it never got easier. Bobbi tried not to be bitter, but it was hard to be so close to it and know she would never have anything like it for herself. 

Her phone buzzed and Bobbi glanced down at it, expecting the text to be from Hunter. It wasn’t, though - it was from Anne. They’d exchanged numbers on Friday in case Bobbi had any questions about the notes Anne had given her, but she hadn’t expected the other girl to actually text her.

Bobbi glanced around the room, but no one seemed to notice she was checking her phone. 

[Anne]: Have you started doing the reading for bio yet?

[Bobbi]: Not yet. My foster brother’s visiting for the day so I’m supposed to be with family. Or something.

[Anne]: ‘Or something’?

[Bobbi]: It’s complicated.

Bobbi chewed on her lip, wondering if she’d already told Anne too much. She couldn’t exactly take back the text now, even if it was too much information.

[Bobbi]: I’ll let you know when I do the reading tho

[Bobbi]: What did you have questions about?

[Anne]: The Krebs Cycle

[Bobbi]: ick

[Anne]: ikr?

[Anne]: If you’re busy I’ll let you go

[Anne]: See you Monday! :)

[Bobbi]: See you Monday

When Bobbi shut her phone off again, she once again scanned the room and found no one was paying attention to her. She had been so worried about meeting Mack and what would happen that she hadn’t stopped to consider he might not even care about her at all. Somehow, that felt even worse.

She only vaguely followed the threads of conversation - Fitz, Mack, and Kora were in a deep discussion about a video game while the rest of the family caught up on life stuff. Bobbi was still trying to figure out what, exactly, Phil and Melinda’s jobs were. They didn’t bring their work home at all, so she was leaning towards something secret-agent-y… but she also wasn’t entirely sure what a pair of secret agents would be doing in the middle of Ohio, unless they had a Mr. and Mrs. Smith vibe going for them. That, and Bobbi also didn’t think secret agents were paid well enough to have such a big house.

“Mum,” Fitz asked, interrupting the conversation, “can I go show Mack my project now?”

“Do I finally get to see it too?” Daisy interrupted before Melinda could answer. 

“Yes, Fitz, you can show Mack your project. Daisy, ask your brother if you can see it.”

“Please?” Daisy said, turning to Fitz and giving him her best puppy eyes. Bobbi had learned those were extremely effective, especially against Phil. 

“Can I come too, Fitz?” Kora piped up.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Fitz sighed. “C’mon then.” 

The Coulson siblings and Elena paraded up the stairs to Fitz’s room, Cap hot on their heels. Bobbi was left in the den with Phil and Melinda, and she avoided looking at them even when she could feel their eyes boring into her.

“You wanna come sit on the couch, Bobbi?” Phil asked, patting the empty spot next to him.

“No thanks. Daisy’ll be back soon.”

“In our house if you leave the seat it’s fair game,” Phil said. “C’mon.”

Bobbi weighed the possibility of disappointing Phil against the possibility of Daisy being mad at her, and decided the former was probably scarier. She unfolded herself and joined Phil and Melinda on the couch, curling her knees into her chest.

“Was Hunter texting you?” Melinda asked from Phil’s other side. So someone had noticed that she’d been on her phone.

“No, um. The girl who sits next to me in class, Anne. She had a question about our reading.”

“Anne Weaver?” Melinda asked.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“She used to tutor Fitz. She helped him get his test scores high enough to get into The Academy,” Melinda explained. “He was good on math and science but couldn’t write an English paper if his life depended on it.”

“She’s applying to MIT,” Bobbi said, turning her phone over in her hands nervously. “And Princeton, and I think some other Ivy Leagues too.” Bobbi knew Anne was smart - she had to be, if she was in five APs - but hearing the list of colleges Anne was applying to had been kind of overwhelming. At least Anne hadn’t asked Bobbi where she was going to apply yet. Bobbi wasn’t sure how she’d explain that despite taking too many AP classes for her own good, she wasn’t going to be going to college. She had a small chunk of money from her inheritance she could spend to find an apartment after she aged out of the foster system, but it definitely wasn’t enough to cover even a semester of college. She could take out loans, maybe, but considering she had no credit and no co-signer, that wasn’t likely to happen.

(Bobbi ignored that Vic and Izzy had not-so-subtly offered to help finance her college career; they had enough to take care of with sending Hunter to college without worrying about her, too.)

“Not surprising,” Phil said, shaking his head. “She was smarter than me five years ago, I can only imagine what she’s like now.”

“She’s really nice,” Bobbi mumbled. 

Luckily Phil and Melinda didn’t do the embarrassing parent thing of asking her if she had a friend. Bobbi wasn’t even sure if Anne was her friend or if she was just being nice because she apparently knew the Coulson family and felt bad for Bobbi. They also didn’t ask if she wanted to invite Anne over, which was a relief. Bobbi didn’t want to invite someone who wasn’t her friend to a house that wasn’t hers.

“Have you heard from Hunter recently?” Melinda asked after a stretch of silence.

“We talked last night,” Bobbi said cautiously, unsure where the conversation was going. “He knew Mack was coming over today so he hasn’t texted.”

“When do we get to meet him?” Phil asked.

Bobbi gulped. So that was where they were going. “Um.”

She was saved from having to answer by Daisy flying back down the stairs. She took a look at Bobbi in her seat, blinked, and then claimed the chair Kora had been sitting in instead, flopping down dramatically. “I don’t know how they find that stuff interesting. Something something drag something something circuitry something something.”

“Isn’t that kind of what you do?” Bobbi asked, cocking her head. Daisy really liked computers, so shouldn’t she like robotics, too? What was the point of learning to code if the code didn’t actually do anything worthwhile?

“It’s different,” Daisy said without offering any further elaboration. “They’re corrupting my only sister! They’re making her want to become an engineer!”

“Technically Elena is your sister now, too,” Melinda said.

“Yeah, and she’s married to Mack, so she has to like whatever engineering things he gets into.” Daisy said engineering like it was a dirty word.

“That’s not how marriage works,” Phil and Melinda chorused.

“Bobbi, back me up!”

“Vic and Izzy don’t like all the same things,” Bobbi said with a shrug. Hunter’s parents were the only metric she had for what a healthy marriage looked like, since she hadn’t been paying attention to her own parents’ marriage when she still had them around. As far as she could tell Vic and Izzy shared a lot of the same interests, but they weren’t carbon copies of each other. That would be kind of boring.

“Who’re Vic and Izzy?” Mack asked when he returned to the den, Fitz and Kora in tow. Elena was nowhere to be found, but Bobbi expected she’d turn up eventually.

“Bobbi’s boyfriend’s parents.” Melinda gave him a look Bobbi couldn’t quite decipher, but guessed to mean something along the lines of don’t you dare start teasing the foster child about her boyfriend, Alphonso. Mack seemed suitably chastised and just nodded before returning to his seat.

“Are we playing Monopoly?” Elena asked when she appeared back in the entrance of the den. She shook her hands back and forth to shake water off of them. That at least explained where she’d been (the bathroom) but not why she was asking about Monopoly.

“We play board games together every Saturday,” Phil explained under his breath when he noticed Bobbi’s confusion. “Winner gets to pick the game the next week. Fitz won the Battleship tournament we had two weeks ago and he loves Monopoly.”

How did Phil keep track of the board games all his kids liked? Bobbi couldn’t even remember her own favorite board game, let alone four other peoples’. 

“I cede my winner’s pick to Bobbi,” Fitz said sagely.

“That’s really not -”

“There are no take-backsies in cession!” Daisy interrupted. “Come on, Bobbi, I’ll show you the game closet.”

Bobbi stood slowly, glancing back over her shoulder to Phil and Melinda. Phil nodded encouragingly and Bobbi turned back around to follow Daisy to the aptly-named game closet. When she’d walked past the door earlier in the week Bobbi assumed it was cleaning supply storage or something, but the closet was absolutely packed with games.

“These are the ones that we can play with eight.” Daisy pointed at the shelf at the bottom of the closet.

“We can just do Monopoly,” Bobbi said, not bothering to look at the other games. At least she knew how to play Monopoly; the same couldn’t be said of most other board games, and she couldn’t imagine something more embarrassing than needing her foster family to explain to her a board game most people started playing when they were in middle school.

“Are you sure? Fitz will be fine no matter what you choose, I promise.”

“Yeah.” Bobbi pulled the box off the shelf.

Daisy nodded and helped Bobbi put the few boxes that had been jumbled around back in order before they returned to the den and the waiting Coulson family.

\---

Bobbi was halfway through her biology reading when someone knocked on the door to her bedroom. “Come in,” she said, already bracing for bad news. Phil and Melinda had probably decided that after how awkward she had been with Mack it was for the better if she went to a different home - one without a bunch of other kids. 

Daisy came through the door instead, closing it gently behind her. Bobbi’s shoulders tensed. She was hoping this wouldn’t be a closed-door kind of conversation.

“Can I sit?” Daisy asked, pointing to the foot of Bobbi’s bed. Bobbi nodded, pulling her notebook and textbook closer to her so there would be more room for Daisy on the bed.

“Mack really liked you,” Daisy offered when she climbed up, folding herself into a cross-legged position.

“That’s just because I gave him a ton of Monopoly money,” Bobbi said dismissively. She had been the first one out of the Monopoly game thanks to a combination of bad luck and unwillingness to barter with the rest of the family members. She’d also never played Monopoly with so many people, and it was much more cutthroat than the games she played with the Hartley family.

“No it’s not,” Daisy insisted. “He said that Cap really liked you, and we should trust dogs when they tell us things.”

“He likes me because your dog likes me,” Bobbi repeated flatly. Being liked because of a dog’s opinion almost stung worse than being disliked.

“No!” Daisy squeaked. “I mean, yes, but also because he thought it was really nice of you to pick a game you knew Fitz liked. And because you weren’t a sore loser.”

Bobbi didn’t bother explaining that she hadn’t picked Monopoly out of kindness to Fitz, and hadn’t made a fuss about losing because it was mostly her own fault. Instead she shrugged noncommittally, fiddling with her pencil.

“I just wanted to tell you since you seemed pretty bummed at dinner,” Daisy said. “Mom and Dad would’ve asked him to wait longer to visit if they knew it was going to upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” Bobbi insisted. “I just - it’s your family time, okay? And I don’t want you all to feel like you can’t spend time with your family because of me.” In retrospect, her nerves from the morning were stupid. The worst that could happen was that she was sent back into the system and found a different family that would fit her better than this one. It wasn’t that the Coulsons weren’t a good family - they really, really were - but they just didn’t seem to be right for Bobbi. She didn’t eat dinner with her family, or watch movies with them, or play board games. She didn’t know how to be around a family like the Coulsons. It was just going to be awkward like this for the next nine months they stopped treating her like she belonged with them.

“But we want you to spend time with us, too. Or at least I do, and I know Mom and Dad do. If all of us at once is too much you can say so.”

“You don’t need to change anything because of me,” Bobbi said. “I want to go over to Hunter’s next weekend anyways, if your parents will let me.”

“You can invite him over here,” Daisy offered. “I’d like to meet him.”

“Maybe.” Bobbi looked down at her notebook to avoid the earnestness in Daisy’s eyes. She didn’t know how to explain how important Hunter was - and also how good he was at reading her. If he came over, he’d be able to tell just how little Bobbi felt like she belonged, and he’d feel even guiltier for being the one who put her there. 

“You don’t have to,” Daisy said eventually. “I’ll let you get back to your homework.”

Bobbi got the distinct feeling she’d disappointed Daisy when the other girl left the room, which didn’t help her feeling awful about the day. Even when she tried not to get in the way she’d found a way to screw up - and she still didn’t understand the Krebs cycle, either.


End file.
